I wonder why Vince has a low inventory?Like I said two years ago he had I a long row of bikes.

no need to apologize you weren't too ruff. I was surprised and disappointed that he didn't have any bikes..it was a fifty mile trip for us but I was even more surprised when I said I wanted the bike for my son and he said he won't recommend it for a teenager since they required a lot of maintenance. Now I thought the whole idea of the new UCE was to make the bike relatively maintenance free and do away with having to tinker with them all the time as it is with the older models. Maintenance on the new REs is less than it is on the eiminator got my son to larn on if you don't count that really annoying oil filter arrangement they have where yo uhave to keep all those orings and washers inline while you try to put that damn spring loaded oil filter cap back on..what idoit came up with that design..

Oldfart,That would be a let down to drive that far and not see any bikes. I wonder what happened? I sometimes wish, I waited on to a G5, over the AVL ( I've had few problems). Looks like REM kept tradition in keeping with the Brit style oil filer we,vie all come to love.

re wants break in for their reasons. Everyone will their own way. You may or not pay the price for doing it your way. I'm not going to say RE is an old mans bike, But for a teen. I think Vince was right ..

re wants break in for their reasons. Everyone will their own way. You may or not pay the price for doing it your way. I'm not going to say RE is an old mans bike, But for a teen. I think Vince was right ..

So I need a futher explantation why a C5 classic is not a bike for a 17 y/o who likes classic styling. He had his choice between one of the new triumphs bonnies, the moto guzzi V7 classic, and one of the new UCE Ryal Enfields...after riding all of them he stuck with his original choice of the C5 RE...not sure why you would say a UCE RE is not a good choice for a teen...Vince for some reason seemed to think the new UCE would be too maintenance intensive for a teen.

I have a guess why he would say such a thing.. Keeping in mind I am not a dealer and can only postulate on these things..

I imagine that if these bikes are moving as fast off the floor and that some dealers probably have to decide to keep a bike in stock and not just sell to the next guy that walks in the door if it appears the it might just flog the machine, have warranty claims that the dealer would have to work on and the customer ends up having a bad experience with the brand.

I have an older style RE and for them you do have to be fairly handy, I imagine the newer bikes are better, but I would hazard to guess the still not a Honda.

Before this goes any farther I would like to address a couple of statements. Concerning the break in-"Break it in like you are going to use it"- I addressed this in the article I linked to in my previous posts. Can you push it? Sure, if you don't mind shorter engine life. In 35 years in this industry I have seen improper break in cost as much as 99% of engine life. Even if you only extend life 5% that is a $300 savings on the price of the bike. It is more savings when you consider savings in maintenance you won't need. For the sake of a dubiously better break in you are throwing money away. You (the editorial you) do not have the training or access to the the information the engineers have. Their way is safe, proven, and effective. Would you tell your doctor you have cancer and tell him how to treat you? What would you need him for? I often have people tell me what is wrong with their bikes and tell me how to fix them. In these cases I ALWAYS have them sign a disclaimer that the only guarantee is that I will have their money. Customers that trust me to do my job get a properly diagnosed repair with a guarantee on the work. When you have the services of a pro you should take advantage of it. Oldfart, I am sorry for any misunderstanding. I specifically said that the AVL engined bike would require more attention than a 17 year old would be able to provide. I am on my third teenager. I know what they are like. You didn't care for adhering to the break in procedure of the EFI. I have had one of the very lowest warranty repair frequencies, if not the lowest, of any dealer because of my practices. This includes stressing break in and matching the bike to the rider. It may come as a shock, but I don't make money on warranty repairs. The labor rate is less. I make no parts sales, and it takes time from other lucrative repairs. It cost the customer time, sometimes time off of work, gas money, and aggravation. Most of the warranty issues I deal with are from customers that know better than me what to do for break in and maintenance. These are also the folks that get mad at me the most. I would rather have happy customers. Now this next bit might be better off as a new thread, but here goes. It concerns bike inventory. Shockingly, I don't own these bikes. These are financed through a flooring company. This company will advance funds so I can put bikes on my floor. It cost me 1 1/2% per month. The last flooring bill I paid amounted to over $1,200. Each Enfield cost me over $70 a month to sit there. I flat ran out of money. Enfields were the only bright sales spot in this recession, but they couldn't support the rest of the load. To delete the flooring I had to delete the line of credit. Everything had to go back. Some of the fall out from that even hurt Kevin Mahoney, for which I am horribly sorry. I now have one new G5 on the floor for a demo, but I will have to order bikes for sale. Oldfart timed his visit just right to catch me in the middle of this transition. As some of you know, I moved this year for a variety of reasons. One was to save over $3,000 a month in rent. Other reasons have to do with a re-organization to survive the recession. These involve a re-emphasis on service. My service department has seen me through thick and thin. Bike sales go away in times like this. If I had not taken these measures I would not have survived. GREAT NEWS!!! The doors are open. I will be able to fulfill my obligations to family, customers and employees. I am sorry if this does not fulfill anyone's vision of what my dealership should be. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, this store is my identity. I have literally given my life to this industry. I did what I had to do to. I am still here and will still be here. I appreciate the folks that believe in me.

You know Vince, I remember you posting how you moved to a less prime but more economical and functional place and I thought to myself what a good move that was.Someone will always find the shop with a good reputation and sometimes that gives the impression of being more service oriented than interest in retailing farkles. I'd rather shop the old Harley shop on a backroad anyday than one of the new Mega Mall Harley dealers.I buy a lot of things on line, and check the reputation of the vendor. An attractive website exhudes confidence. For all I know, the guy could be some schmoe like Uncle Ernie, sitting in his cellar in his underwear in front of the computer, but if he can supply the product and service at a good price, I'll shop there again. It's a lot like a delivery Pizza shop. If 99% of its' business is delivery, it can be on a one way street going the wrong way, as long as the phone works and the product is good, it will do business.The increase in internet awareness and use, combined with the recession, has made businesses either adapt or fail. In Real Estate it has changed too. Buyers and sellers used to drop into an office, where they would be greeted by a receptionist and then handed off to a duty agent. Agents would go in to use the phones, computers and fax. One of the staples of business was to get on the phone and go through the phone book blindly callind as many people as you could. "Hello, are you or anyone you know interested in buying or selling property" "Okay, thank you?." It was a numbers game. Call 100 people, get one lead. Call 200, get two leads, etc. I never did it because I realized-call 100 people, piss off 99.One big name franchise in town had a tajmah Hall building, multi stories, along with 8 offices spread around town. They rented the plants, and paid someone to come in and water them. They paid for a receptionist. They had a huge rent/mortgage. The cleaning crew would come in several times a week.. They didn't realize it at first, but people called or used the internet, they didn't walk in anymore. Next thing you knew, this big company went bankrupt.Our crappy little office was $3000/month rent. Utilities were another 1K. The overhead was passed on to the agents. One day the broker and I sat down and I told her-No one walks in anymore. All us agents have cell phones with long distance, we all have computers, we all have fax machines. Dump this white elephant, let us operate from home, and pass the savings along to the agents. It's been 6 months now, and we are surviving, while several other companies are out of business. Innovate, or die. Business will never be the same, and it will get tougher. If I lived in your area, i would buy a bike from you, even if it cost more, and I would order it and wait if I had to, because of your reputation. Your move will pay out many times over.

First and foremost let me once again apologize if it seemed like I was picking on Vince or in some way putting him or his shop down that was not my intent. Actually my first impressions of Vince's shop and Vince were very good..he seemed like one of those old timer's that took great pride in his work and his knowledge of his product and he truly in my mind was wanting to be as helpful as possible but was also trying to sell me something he had available. Now with that said when I go to any dealership I do expect to be able to look, feel, and in the case of a vehicle test drive the product. If I am inter5ested in buying a C5 I don't want to demo a G5 or a military or one of the AVLs I want to test ride a C5 to see if it fits me and if I like the controls and the ride, the sound..all those things that you consider and in this case was the bike a good fit for my son. A dealership without product is not a dealership, the day I went in my impressions from what I saw was this probably one hell of a great repair shop with people I would trust my bike to.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, I am brand new to this, my son and I just starting riding in July. Since then I have purchased 4 new vehicles a Kawasaki eliminator 125 for my son and I to learn, Kymco Agility 125(sometimes I just don't want to deal with shifting and I needed to be able to keep up with my son on his Kawasaki 125), traded in the Agility 125 for a Kymco GrandVista 250 because I had the need for speed LOL and then finally 2 weeks ago purchased my son's C5. So when I walked into Vince's dealership I was a serious buyer and expected to find product to test ride if there is no product in my mind there is no dealership, one might as well go online and buy it sight unseen.

So in conclusion, would I buy a bike from Vince? Only if he has it on hand so I could take it for a spin, would I take any of my bikes to Vince’s shop to repair? Based on what I saw you bet I would. Please get bikes in as soon as you can again it would be nice to do business with a reputable shop that is closer than 150 miles from home.